Recently, the Indonesian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MOCI) has issued the Circular on Communication and Information Technology No. 3 in 2022.
The effective date of registration of private electronic system operators must conduct business in Indonesia when the requirements are met.
Operators must register for PSE (Indonesian Electronic Systems Certificate), otherwise administrative fines will be imposed. PSE is similar to the ICP certificate of the Internet of China applied to internet and digital service businesses in this country.
Users of digital products in Indonesia are protected.
Once registration is complete, that means Indonesian authorities can directly request Internet companies to remove content that is suspected of being illegal. At the same time, local governments will also levy VAT on digital business, from content to virtual items.
As of July 21, more than 8,200 companies have registered, including 207 foreign companies, including Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and other famous apps. In addition, the popular games Mobile Legends and PUBG Mobile in the Indonesian market are also going through the PSE registration process.
However, there are still at least a dozen mainstream digital platforms that have yet to complete registration, such as Amazon, Alibaba, Opera, LinkedIn, Yahoo, and game-related platforms such as Roblox, Steam, Epic Games, Battle.net, Origin, etc. have aroused great interest among Indonesian netizens. Of course, Indonesian officials also stated that these companies that missed the registration deadline in Indonesia can still operate after complying with the regulations.
Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan, Director General of the Indonesian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, said at a press conference: “We seek to create a beneficial, safe and comfortable digital space for people. Nothing more and nothing less, we want to maintain our sovereignty over digital space.
On the surface, the government does not care about national information security to monitor Internet companies to prevent the personal data of Indonesian citizens from being misused for profit. But in essence, this new regulation is still aimed at taxing multinational Internet giants.
Indonesia with 260 million people can be said to be the most populous country in Southeast Asia, but overall it is not a big country in terms of Internet. Although there are many local companies like ride-hailing software giant Gojek, most of them are foreign multinational Internet companies.
It is understandable that Indonesia requires Internet companies to register for PSE. For companies that fail to meet the deadline, officials said sanctions will be introduced in phases.
The first is a written warning and a requirement to complete the registration within 5 working days. The second step is to fine, the third step is to administratively sanction the act of obstructing access. In addition, ignoring the written warnings will temporarily suspend the operation of the electronic system. If validation is not done within 5 days after suspension, access to the electronic system will also be blocked and the PSE certificate will be revoked.
